Operator drowsiness and fatigue are major factors in land vehicle and aviation accidents. Devices and applications have been developed for detecting drowsiness, fatigue, and other operator impairments and for alerting the operator of his impaired state. For example, smartphone applications for operator impairment detection use a camera installed in the operator's smartphone to monitor the operator's face for observing signs of operator impairment such as head nodding and eye blinking. The camera tracks facial features of the operator and performs steps to determine when the operator's head moves or nods. The camera also tracks the operator's eye and performs steps to determine when the operator's eye blinks by differentiating between the color of the operator's pupil and the operator's eyelid. The smartphone tracks the number and/or frequency of head nods and/or eye blinks to determine when the operator has become fatigued or drowsy. This approach has a number of drawbacks, however. For example, the smartphone camera does not catch every head nod and often has difficulty distinguishing between a head nod and a harmless head movement or a driving-related head movement. The smartphone camera also does not always detect eye blinks because some operators have light pupils, dark skin, or other facial differences resulting in difficulty determining whether the operator's eye is open or closed.